Chapter Six: A Wedding

This weekend, I took Alfonso, the small grey beetle (or weevil, to be precise) who has made his home on my desk, to a wedding in the country.

It was the marriage of someone I didn't like particularly to somebody whose name I could never remember. I brought down out of the loft an emerald green smoking jacket which I had carefully removed from the still warm body of my late step-grandfather, all those summers ago, according to his very strict instructions. Alfonso made himself comfortable behind the tangerine carnation we had unfortunately been asked to wear, and off we set.

We arrived early in the small village miles from anywhere decent to stay where the couple had thoughtfully chosen to have their nuptials, and I found a space right by the churchyard, behind a red van which I could have sworn I had seen before.

I poked around the moss-covered gravestones of some people whose names you could no longer read, who had been there a very long time, listening to a solitary sparrow singing in the yew tree. Very occasionally the peace was disturbed by Alfonso tricking his Speak & Spell into saying undesirous words such as "fuckwand" and "breastpump".

The service committed the cardinal sins of being both predictable and uneventful, although Alfonso fell asleep, and I had to carry him out when he started snoring the theme tune of MacGyver.

At the reception, we were on the leftovers table, next to a couple of aunts, the vicar and a dull couple who's sole claim to fame was a university kayaking trip with the groom in 1992. Alfonso not only drank all the white wine, but when the wedding cake arrived, he rolled the dessert spoon over an upturned pepper shaker, creating an impromptu catapult with which he sent most of the ill-advised tiramisu style concoction flying directly into the cleavage of the bride's mother.

During the speeches, the effect of the amount of wine consumed in ratio to the size of a weevil's body was revealed, and he began to heckle. As the best man struggled through a seemingly endless anecdote about the groom and some missing golf clubs, Alfonso called out

"What do you think this is, New Faces of '86?! Bring on the fat man with the talking dog!"

We were asked to leave shortly after, and it began to rain. By the time we found our car, were sodden and dripping with mud.

As we crawled back along the motorway, trying to shake a red van driving right up behind us, I said to Alfonso-

"God I hate weddings"

He replied

"Which is why I've accepted invitations for us to go to one every single weekend between now and Christmas"

So, I squashed him in the Cortina's ash tray. But he'll be back tomorrow.